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November 30, 2023

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Peace, Love and Good Food

Ruqxana Vasanwala’s life exemplifies how cooking a good meal for someone can be an expression of love. Her cooking love is shared with friends and family and extends to her beloved cats as well. As much as Ruqxana enjoys making magic with her cooking, what brings her the most joy is serving her food and watching others relish it in a circle of shared love and enjoyment. It is not just about the food; it is about being present for each other, especially in times of need. { read more }

Be The Change

Make a conscious effort to consider how the food you prepare is an expression of love for yourself and for others to whom you serve it.

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November 29, 2023

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Why to Get Published

“Anyone who publishes a book is immediately asked versions of the same question, “How do you get published?”I have been asked by everyone from colleagues and former students to healthcare providers and complete strangers. Behind the question used to be the assumption that the published author has access to some secret, insider knowledge. A former editor of mine spoke occasionally at conferences, and told me he wondered if writers believed that there might be a magic font–Garamond 12.5!–that hypnotized acquisition editors into saying yes. It’s a simple question to ask but not easy to answer. You can be glib, of course, and give an answer like the punchline to the old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall (“Practice!”). But it’s more complicated than that. Now with so many new platforms and venues, so many new ways to make written work public, I suspect that for all the writers frustrated and disappointed because they did not publish, that there are just as many who are published, and still are, if not bitter exactly, at least not entirely happy and satisfied. Whatever they thought was going to happen didn’t happen. Well, what did they think was going to happen? It strikes me as a real and important and fascinatingly complex question. What do you think is going to happen when you publish your book? What do any of us think is going to happen?…” Author Mick Cochrane shares more in this thoughtful piece. { read more }

Be The Change

For more inspiration, check out this special session hosted by author and writing instructor Andy Couturier,”Strategies to Actually Complete a Book.” More details and RSVP info here. { more }

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November 28, 2023

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Reconciliation as a Way of Life: White Women & Settler Coloniali

A descendant of White settlers of Indigenous lands, Margaret Jacobs is an award-winning author and professor of history and gender studies who has focused for over two decades on Indigenous child removal and family separation. She studies the history of the American West in a transnational and comparative context with a focus on women, children, and families. Her Bancroft Prize-winning book, White Mother to a Dark Race (2009), concerns government-enforced removal of Indigenous children from their families, and the role of White as well as Indigenous women with respect to those policies. Her most recent projects delve into truth-telling, healing, and reconciliation efforts between Indigenous peoples and settlers, including through voluntary land repatriation. “I have come to see reconciliation not as a one-time effort,” she says. but “as a practice, as a way of life, in which all of us can engage” by uncovering the history of our land and place, and through sustained, respectful relationships…” { read more }

Be The Change

Join an Awakin Call this Saturday with Margaret Jacobs. More details and RSVP info here. { more }

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Inspiring Links of the Week

November 27, 2023

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How Rituals Support Us

“I dont know if I could have survived seven years of my childhood without the soul-saving rituals of my Persian culture. I grew up amid the Iran-Iraq War, which killed a million people. Besides the horrors of the war, freedom of thought and expression were severely restricted in Iran after the Islamic revolution. Women bore the brunt of this as, in a matter of months, we were forced to ditch our previous lifestyle and observe a strict Islamic attire, which covered our bodies and hair. We lost the right to jog, ride a bicycle, or sing in public. Life seemed unbearable at times, but we learned to bring meaning into uncertainty and chaos by maintaining grounding practices and developing new ones…” Research demonstrates that rituals can reduce anxiety, enhance performance– and even benefit those who don’t believe in them. Ari Honorvar shares more… { read more }

Be The Change

What are the rituals embedded in your own life? Take a moment to reflect on what they are, and the meaning they hold for you.

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November 26, 2023

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Personal Integrity in C.P. Cavafy’s Poetry

“The current world situation, with war raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, presents a particular challenge to those people who wish to take a unified perspective one which goes beyond polarities and tribalism in search of justice and humanity. It is hard to know how to respond. At such a time, the gentle but insistent voice of Constantine Cavafy, the modern Greek poet, carries a welcome reminder that however extreme the external circumstances, there is always the path of keeping faith with the values and principles we know to be true. Although much of his poetry is based overtly upon the events and myths of the ancient world, editor and translator Andrew Watson, who has recently worked on a comprehensive new book about him for the Onassis Archive in Athens, explains that Cavafy’s underlying message is an eternal one, based upon a deep understanding of the human condition.” Andrew Watson pays homage to Greece’s most famous modern poet, whose message of quiet fidelity to one’s own values still has great resonance today. { read more }

Be The Change

Read a selection of Cavafy’s poems here. { more }

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November 25, 2023

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A Family Reunion at the End of the World

“Have you ever been at a reunion or a big party, when the plates are empty and conversations wind down and you think about leaving? Then you hear peals of laughter, the clatter of dishes, and contagious giggles from behind the kitchen door. Thats where the real party is, as the aunties portion out leftovers to be taken home, scrape the dishes, and laugh with their hands in hot soapy water, snapping damp towels as they dry pots and pans. Its one thing to be invited to the party. Then you have a choice: to remain a polite guest in a distant armchair or to walk through that kitchen door and roll up your sleeves, to be washed in love and laughter…” Robin Wall Kimmerer shares more in this excerpt from “Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations.” { read more }

Be The Change

The next time you find yourself at a large or small gathering experiment with rolling up your sleeves and walking through the kitchen door.

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November 24, 2023

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Kinship is a Verb

“In thinking about kinship, I think its important to begin with, What are the boundaries of our kin? We can go way internal and microscopic, down to the nerves that actually inform our brain more than our brain informs our bodies, right down to the microbes, not only managing our health but informing our way of being and interacting with the world. Then [we can go] all the way out, right to our own families, to the human and greater-than-human world, out to the cosmosthe fact that were made of stardust, right? Kinship reaches very far.” John Hausdoerffer, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Gavin Van Horn, are the coeditors of the five-volume series ‘Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations.’ More in this conversation between the trio. { read more }

Be The Change

How might you extend your circle of kinship today?

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